For many investors, putting money in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is like investing in America. Wal-Mart stands for everything that your stereotypical middle American does; sprawling properties, gigantic packages of Suave(TM) and Snickers(TM) and Snoop Dogg (TM, probably). Wal-Mart is to retail what the Hummer is to automobiles. Big, resource-hungry, and not entirely respectful of the little guy. And along with America, Wal-Mart seemed like the never-ending growth story. Sometimes I thought the Waltons' place in the billionaires' top 10 would never be equalled.

But some days, like today, the news seems to go a different way. Wal-Mart, emperor of homogenization, king of the price cut, sultan of squashing its competitors, posted a teensy 0.5% same-store sales growth in October. There's talk that the retailer might even (yikes! double yikes!) post so-called "negative growth" a.k.a. shrinking in the months to come.

Where Wall Street comes from, negative growth is a synonym for "run for the hills." From whence cometh our help, Americans?

In my opinion, our help cometh from Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT).

In a sign that the world's largest retailer expects to see slowing sales this fall, Wal-Mart lowered its September same-store sales forecasts. In addition to the August 1.8% same-store sale growth given just yesterday, what lies ahead?

Wal-Mart, considered to be a huge barometer of consumer spending, can cause entire market swings when it even sighs, and lowering a current-month sale-store sales forecast can send ripples throughout the national averages. We've all seen it before if we were paying attention; I know I was.

Is the American economy -- and more even, economic growth -- predicted by Wal-Mart's numbers on a monthly and even weekly basis? Many would argue yes, and there are equal opinions on the other side of this answer as well.

It's true that Wal-Mart, by virtue of its size, is a very decent indicator of the growth (or stagnation) of the American economy -- nothing new here. But, as Wal-Mart continues to grow, it may even become a larger indicator of economic spending patterns or slowdowns that could be used to actually guide some of the marketplace, which is based on speculation more than fundamentals if you ask me.

During the third quarter of the year, Wal-Mart's stock went from $48.91 to $49.32, or 1.1%. In an unusual show of solidarity with WMT's investors, same-store sales rose only 1.8% in September. The company's customers must have called its investors on the phone.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) had all kinds of reasons why its store sales were not more robust. Comparisons with Katrina-related events were at the top of the list. But, the company had said that same-store figures would be up as much as 3%, so the news was not good.

The unavoidable truth for Wal-Mart is that sales in the US are, if the months are evened out, slowing sharply. The company is just too big with too many stores. The easy share is not longer there for the taking.

As investors combine the news in the US with the sale of Wal-Mart units in South Korea and Germany, the evidence is mounting that China has become an absolutely critical part of the company's ability to grow.

When Starbucks recorded a not-amazing same-store sales increase of just 4% for June, compared to a more typical comparable-store increase of 6% in the previous month, those more-caffeinated investors all held our collective breath (it's a short breath, you know, coffee has a way of making one's heart race and one's breath come shallow and fast). As Michael Canfield pointed out: could this mean Starbucks had become mature? Or was it, as Starbucks management posited, simply the impatience factor: customers tired of waiting in line for banana coconut frappuccinos?

It's a long-subscribed-to axiom that you can't have both quality and quantity. And in my opinion, Starbucks' quantity has finally increased to the point that its quality is problematic. A local one-time Starbucks manager who recently opened his own coffeeshop told me that he shook his head when his employer switched from the authentic but sometimes difficult-to-manage mechanical espresso machines to the simple, fast, industrial push-button variety. As a coffee aficionado, one who's spent her share of time behind a coffee counter, I can attest: Starbucks lattes are no longer almost as good as the ones from Gladstone Coffee down the street (they serve up locally-roasted beans from the fabu La Marzocco machine).